Just One Week
by Kore Anesidora
Summary: Regina is promised time with Henry over the weekend, provided that she see Dr. Hopper for therapy throughout the rest of the week. Set after Cora's death. SQ if you squint.


**This is a one-shot, mostly psychological angst with Regina Mills. SQ if you squint really really hard. Some hinting at rape and abuse - nothing at all graphic, I assure you. Oh, and a fair few Classical references. If you don't like 'em, then BOOOOooooo! CLASSICS RULES.**

** Ahem. I mean...I respect your choices as a person. Yes. That's exactly what I meant.**

**All translations are my own. **

** Enjoy!**

** Disclaimer: OUaT is not mine**

* * *

_iamque pedem referens casus euaserat omnis,_

_redditaque Eurydice superas ueniebat ad auras_

_pone sequens (namque hanc dederat Prosperpina legem),_

_cum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem,_

_ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes:_

_restitit, Eurydicenque suam iam luce sub ipsa_

_immemor heu! uictusque animi respexit. ibi omnis_

_effusus labor atque immitis rupta tyranni_

_foedera, terque fragor stagnis auditus Auernis._

-Vergil's Georgics 4.485-491

"And now retracing his steps, he evaded all misfortune,

and, following behind (as Persephone had ordered),

Eurydice emerged into the air above,

when suddenly a madness seized the incautious lover,

one which must be forgiven, if spirits of death

know how to forgive: he paused - alas, forgetful!-

at the very edge of light, his will conquered,

and looked back at Eurydice. At that moment all

his efforts washed away, and his pact with the savage tyrant

was broken; three times a crash was heard

on the waters of Hell."

* * *

_Quod si mea numina non sunt_

_magna satis, dubitem haud equidem implorare quod usquam_

_flectere si nequeo superos Acheronta mouebo._

_ -_Vergil's Aeneid 7.310-312

"But if my divine power is not

enough, by no means will I hesitate to seek help wherever it may be:

if I am unable to sway the heavens, then I will move Hell."

* * *

_Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis, uidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent, "__Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις?" respondebat illa, "ἀποθανεῖν θέλω."_

_ -_Petronius' Satyricon, 48

"Indeed I saw the Sibyl of Cumae with my own eyes, hanging in a jar, and when those boys asked her, "Sibyl what do you want?" she responded, "I want to die."

* * *

"Do you love your mother?"

The office was yellow and green, the kind of light, tempered green they use specifically because studies have been done that prove such a colour calms, subconsciously, the room's inhabitants. Upon closer inspection it looked more blue than anything else, a soft aquamarine that was supposed to whisk people away to thoughts of the ocean's pellucid swells, but that only reminded Regina of the light of the appliances flashing through the darkness of her room while she tried to sleep.

Try was the operative word. She had trouble sleeping. She _has_ trouble sleeping. Perhaps that was an understatement. She did not sleep. Not the way one was meant to, in any case. These days her sleep generally consisted of two to four scattered hours, after which she lay in bed staring up at the ceiling, counting the flashes, finding a forced serenity in their measured consistencies, like tapping one's fingers to a beat. She could not say exactly when this pattern began, but she imagined it must have been some time ago, for she could not properly remember the last time she had a full nine hours of slumber.

Though, the good doctor would undoubtedly try to untangle the strings of _that_ particular universe. Try, again, being the operative word.

"Of course," she answered the question with nary a batted eyelash, "She's my mother."

Sitting in a chair across from her, Dr. Hopper shifted, leaning back yet somehow still appearing to be paying attention to her every action, weighing every word with an unbiased set of mental scales. A pad of paper lay forgotten on the end-table beside him. When she had entered the room seeing its rectangular form between his hands, she had expected him to scrape away at it while he interrogated her from across the room, recording her responses and noting peculiarities. Instead, he had placed it neatly on the table and promptly held his hand out to her, gesturing for her to sit on the leather couch.

A digital clock blinked behind him. A bright blue light, almost whitish with but a tint of sky, it blinked. And she counted.

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. _

_Pause._

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

"Do you hate your mother?"

A bookshelf towered to her left, rearing up against the sea-washed walls. Faux wood. Cheap. Texture was naught but a fabrication these days. Something created in a factory. Nothing had any real tangibility to it in this world. It all felt the same to the touch, slick and hard and smooth, but it looked so jarringly different. A great number of books lined those shelves and she eyed them, preferring to read their glittering spines than meet Archie's calm gaze. He looked so patient, so damnably _nice_. It made her feel vaguely sick.

"Of course," she replied to his query, a hint of the usual dryness in her voice, "She's my mother."

"Did you kill your mother?"

She felt a strange twinge in her gut as she heard those words seep from the doctor's mouth, issued forth like an edict or some nefarious spell, binding her where she sat. _Nefas_. From an ancient language whose only use was to read ancient documents. But the word itself was a curiosity. _Nefas_. Unspeakable. Sin. Matricide was a sin, was it not? Was it not an unspeakable act, an evil act? Sin was something Regina understood well, yet at the same time not at all. She had always imagined that the conscious would reside in the mind, but here she felt the faint hues of it staining her abdomen with sweeping color. The best course of action would be to ignore it for the time being.

"No," came her terse reply, tense. She blinked in a vague attempt at appearing less like a statue, but the effect was ruined by her perfect posture, her hands laid flat on her thighs like a pharaoh at Karnak, perched on the very bladed edge of her seat, "That distinct pleasure belongs to Snow White."

Dr. Hopper was unrelenting, however, persistent, "Would you have killed your mother?"

Fractionally, ever so fractionally, Regina's eyes narrowed. Most of her waking hours were spent trying to forget about her mother, to actively erase her from the mind. It was a difficult task, but one that she had become frighteningly competent at completing.

This was not her first visit with Archie, but he had never really been able to crack through her reserve before, not since she had appeared at his doorstep, tears in her eyes, the memory of Daniel's fingers still fresh on her throat. She prided herself on her many shields, the layers all built up, mortar and stone. Those parts of herself that lay hidden away inside were things to be cherished in secret, like the preserved wood-carvings of monks painstakingly etching out their psalms upon scrapped and faded vellum by candlelight, a single flame surrounded by the threatening darkness, the swallowing darkness, shielded from gusts with a cupped hand in which it would tremble and shudder, sputtering to a near halt before crawling back into life, tall upon the smokey wick once more.

What she wouldn't have given for the lights of this world to be like flames, as they were in the Enchanted Forest. Here lights were consistent, controlled things, carefully monitored, steady in their concentrated beams, searing. They were nothing more than objects, things to be counted and stored away, the ticking of winged time. Nothing of the organic resided within their mechanical glares. Perhaps it was an irrational wish. After all, she had no idea whether a shift in environment would change anything; she feared that the problem at heart dwelled far deeper than so simple a thing as a mere transition of environment.

Her answer came, smoothly hissed, though to her own ears, it grated, harsh and unyielding, "Of course," she held Archie's sickeningly kind gaze, steady, "She was my mother."

* * *

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

_ Pause._

_ One. Two. Three. Four. Five Six._

_ Pause._

Every day, Regina awoke exactly three minutes before her alarm was set to go off, screeching its shrill pulse. She didn't know why this occurred as timely as clockwork, but it did. When it first started happening, she was annoyed. How dare her heedless mind, so unmindful of her needs, wake her before the appropriate time? Yet it had become proclivitous, something she hardly ever noticed anymore, just in the way that others might not realize they were fiddling with the ends of the hair or twirling cutlery between their fingers. Now, the only thing she noticed about this time was that ubiquitous light.

There were lights everywhere in this world, yet she always somehow singled out one through the glaring cacophony and concentrated upon it in spite of any reservations she may have had. Then again, this whole counting business had become habitual as well. Things that flashed or moved in a periodic manner ensnared the eye, and she watched until she was utterly drowning in numbers. Still, it was better than dwelling upon far more unsavory matters, matters she long since endeavored to drive from her wretched memory.

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

_ Pause._

_ One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

_ Pause. _

She was lying in bed, lying in bed, mind completely blank, simply counting, always counting, waiting for her clock to read 06:00. It was a small mercy that her clock did not display the slow whittling of seconds, or she would have had two things to count, and had they not been synchronized, one of them would have experienced a swift yet brutal demise at her hand. Darkness pressed in on her, the darkness of shaded windows and the bleak grey outlining the shapes of her elegant furnishings. Like pale shades, the flickering light of one of her appliances danced on nearby surfaces, white tinged through with blue, stained.

At last the alarm blared, and she slapped it in a smooth, practiced movement. Casting the duvet aside, she swung her legs over the side of her bed and stood, striding to her closer. There she pulled a silk robe from its hanger. She tied the robe around her waist. Unsatisfied with the knot created at her first attempt, she tugged it loose and tried once more. She withheld the glare that threatened to steal across her features with an urgency sourced in scratching some unknown itch, and re-tied the knot again. This time, this time it was perfect. The ends were tucked neatly back under the sash so that they did not hang around her thighs, flapping disconcertingly. Not a crease out of place, she felt a sense of relief at her work. No distraction would come from her attire this morning at least.

The same could not be said for her house, however. Looking up, she saw that a fine layer of dust had settled on the windowsills. That would have to be taken care of. But first, clothes.

She turned back to the closet. Clothes to garner attention. Clothes to get lost in the crowd. Beneath them sat an army of shoes, dark boots zipped to the knee, soles thick and durable, leather buffed to a dull shine, heels and pumps and flats, and in the cubby shelves were accessories - gloves and scarves folded neatly at chest level, belts coiled upon themselves like snakes. Everything was immaculately spaced, an exact hand-breadth apart, wide enough so that she could reach in and grab whatever she needed without ever disturbing the other accoutrements.

And she did reach in, grasping a blue dress with a neckline like gulls' wings. With near surgical precision she dressed, turning to regard herself in the mirror before slipping her pumps on - reveling in the extra height they gave her; height was always an advantage to a woman. This her mother taught. This she believe in spite of herself. And then she was moving downstairs, hair perfect, feeling like a fragile pile of gold, waiting for the merest touch to spill to the floor.

Glancing down, she saw a scuff on her shoes.

She cursed to herself silently she steadied herself on a door frame to buff the shoe to a dull shine, then, reluctant, she made her way over to the kitchen counter. The house felt too large, but it was hers, something she had complete control over and could keep in perfect order. She did not know if she would be able to live in a space any larger than this, quite frankly. Having to ritually cleanse a place any bigger might drive her to inevitable madness. On the other hand, this was ideal. Apart from the dust. But that would be dealt with presently.

Heels clicking against the cool synthetic-feeling wood which her floors consisted of, she scooped up the teapot and teacup ready for her on the kitchen counter, and made her way to the adjacent reading room. Carefully, she placed the tea upon the table situated in front of her chair, turning the pot thrice in a counterclockwise direction until the spout was pointing away from the kitchen and towards the window at her right, before she sat, smoothing out the wrinkles in her dress resultant from her actions.

Rich and dark the tea poured, steaming into the cup, the pale porcelain flashing with the heat, almost transparent as light cast through the nearby window through its paper-thin walls. She waited but a moment before taking the cup in her hands and settling back into the chair, allowing herself an unorthodox moment of ease. The handle-less cup scalded her fingertips, but she ignored it, sipping gently at the brew. Before she could stop herself, her gaze flicked over to the window. She did not feel her eyes narrow so much as she felt the rising itch between her shoulder-blades. She tried to shake it off, but she should have known better - that never worked. She might as well beg the sky to rain showers of gold, much good it would do her. But the way that damnable dust glittered there on the sill, mocking.

Her muscles tensed. Her hands clenched upon the cup. Her left foot began to tap a steady rhythm upon the floor, the bend of her ankle jerky and quivering. The longer she looked, the more dust seemed to appear, until it littered the floor, the bookshelves, the table, the arm of her synthetic suede chair - everywhere the light touched, illuminating the pulverized particles, making her very teeth ache.

Tea scalded her throat as she took an inordinately large gulp, not thinking straight. Hissing more out of vexation than pain, she slammed the cup down on the table, the wine-dark tides within sloshing dangerously near the rim, whipped to a frenzy by her Junonic ire.

No. The cleaning would have to wait. She could do it later. Later, when the hours permitted. The hours.

With no small amount of control she finished her tea, then departed, heading back towards the kitchen, tea set in hand. An apple or a pear or a banana - whichever she preferred for that particular morning - awaited her there. She ate sparingly, even reluctantly. Fruit in the morning. A nibble of bread in the afternoon. A half-hearted attempt at a salad for supper. The tea acted as both soothing agent and appetite suppressant. She hardly even cooked these days; for whom? Herself? Alone? The thought sent a pang skidding through her abdomen, the thud and skip of a flat stone over water. When Henry returned, she would cook for him, and it would be a feast indeed.

Ms. Swan, the indelible, infuriating Ms. Swan, swore to keep her promise. Henry would visit on the weekends - under supervision - provided that Regina continue therapy throughout the week. The supervision clause made her lip curl, but she had little choice in this agreement; she would take what she could, but she'd be damned before she groveled. According to Ms. Swan, her parents had been loath to let Regina see him at all, and the thought of Emma Swan defending the Evil Queen to Snow White and her Prince was at once oddly satisfying and deeply abhorrent.

Still, one session down, four more to go. Then the weekend and Henry. She could survive inept psychoanalysis if it meant gaining his trust. Eventually perhaps even his love.

But she dared not hope for that quite yet. Too soon. Wounds too fresh, which hope would only disease with suppurating regret. For now she had her routine - near sacred rites - and time. She had waited years for revenge; she could wait a week for Henry.

Four days. Four more days. And all the hours between.

* * *

"Ms. Mills," Dr. Hopper steepled his fingers beneath his chin, his elbows resting upon his knees, "would you be so kind as to tell me about your father?"

She crossed her legs. Normally she did not cross her legs for any extended length of time, for she did not like the sensation of feeling the blood-flow beneath the skin, the pulse making her foot jump with every pump of her enhanced heart. The sensation made her lip curl. But changing her position periodically put people at ease. It was important to make the good doctor believe that she was more than a cyborg, a machine with a mere human exterior, a fleshy cage. If not, then she would never succeed in breaking through his cold facade and into his confidence. And she needed his confidence to prove to Emma and - more importantly - Henry that she was striving to better herself, regardless of whether it was true or not.

The question was one she did not like to discuss. Therefore it was particularly important for her to appear relaxed when answering it with her usual perfunctory response. Anything less, and Archie might begin to suspect her.

Was that sarcasm? She did not find too great a slight in her plans with just a little biting cynicism.

Looking directly into the doctor's gaze with her own, she replied, her voice flat, "I do not have a father. He's dead."

Dr. Hopper seemed a bit taken aback by her actions. He probably thought she would look away, that she would look at anything but him. Instead she had thrown him off guard. Good. She did not like how easily he had cracked her reserve so far, "Nevertheless, I would like to hear about him, if you would be so kind."

A book had been moved on the shelf. Second shelf up. Seventh tome from the left. Finger marks had been left in the thin layer of dust on the top of the spine. Euripides' _The Bacchae_.

A kind man, her father. Barrel-chested in his prime, he would have been a hulking Odysseus of a man, pale, with piercing eyes and dark stubble omnipresent upon his chin. But she had only ever known him to be a weak groveling shadow of his former self, reduced to vermin by her mother's adamantine will. Then again, who hadn't been? Snow might like to think that she could resist Cora's will, but Regina knew better. She had lived for years - merciless years, merciless hours - under her mother's ruthless tyranny.

Those were years she preferred not to dwell upon.

Her mother infuriated her in a way nothing else could. That time seemed like it took place so long ago. It was a different Regina that existed then. She had almost forgotten what real freedom of emotion felt like, strange as that may sound. Surely, emotion must always rage in the breast, though that was not the case. One can restrain it. It never truly leaves, but it can be repressed. In the back of consciousness it stays, and there it lurks, tickles almost. When the situation becomes particularly tense, it increases to an itch. Scratching at the itch flakes at its scabrous cover, releasing the toxic fluids contained within.

"My father was a good man," she said, "Simply weak-willed. Nothing at all like Henry, even if they share the same name."

"And are you glad Henry is more resilient? Even if it's to resist your own manipulations?"

Regina only smiled, "Infinitely."

And wasn't that the truth.

"Why would you have killed your mother?"

This again? She tired of this infernal pestering concerning her mother. Had she been any younger, she would have rolled her eyes, "Traitors rightfully dwell in the devil's teeth."

His eyebrows climbed upwards, "So now she was a traitor?"

"She betrayed everything for power," Regina growled back.

"Including you," he pointed out.

"And her husband and Rumpelstiltskin," she purposefully avoided where he was going with all of this.

"Don't deflect, Regina."

She bristled, "You do not issue orders to me, Bug!" she snarled, "I am here because I choose to be! Do not make me change my mind!"

With a sigh, he jotted something down on his notebook, then rose to his feet, "Excuse me," he began, "but I must use the facilities. I'll be right back. And, Regina," he fixed her with an inscrutable stare - were she anyone else, she would have shifted in her seat, "I apologize, but this is _my_ office, and here you are not the Evil Queen; you are my patient."

She scowled after him. As soon as the door was shut, she edged forward, craning her neck to peer at what he had written.

There was his slanted doctoral scrawl.

_Acheronta Movebo - Starobinsky._

Well, that was absolutely useless to her.

From the floor nearby Pongo huffed at her, as though he knew she was doing something she wasn't supposed to be doing.

"Oh, shut up," she grumbled, leaning back in defeat, arms crossed in a gesture that could only be described as petulant.

* * *

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

_Pause._

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

Lying in bed again, buzzing from a bottle of wine, her head. The light of her clock flashed, and she stared at its glow cast upon the ceiling, shadows clinging to corners, her mother's memory looming from the vanity mirror.

She counted to convince herself that Cora was beneath the ground, and no amount of sorrowful song could drag her back into the world above.

* * *

Control.

That was the name of her greatest care.

Control.

She needed it. It gave her comfort. It stilled her raging heart in the dark of lonely nights. It made her thoughts clear, her troubled mind cool and orderly. Without it she would be lost. Without it she would have no direction, no focus. Her reflections harbored would turn to rabid hounds and howl at her fleeing heels with slavering jowls, snapping maws. Whenever the itch returned, she tempered the urge to scratch by swift organization of her mental faculties. Counting.

This was the way. This was her salvation. To break it was to break all that was Regina Mills. She had been forged by her past into this remorseless Evil Queen, and she had no regrets. Her actions were not what plagued her; she was merely a product. The blame for what she did now lay not at her feet, but at those of her maker.

Or, more appropriately, makers. She was, after all, a collaborative effort. Though the effort itself she did not enjoy dwelling upon.

"Tell me about your magic lessons with Rumpelstiltskin."

"They were," she ground her teeth until their skidding was audible, a jarring noise behind a point in her lower jaw, "generally unpleasant."

Archie waited for a moment, then gestured for her to continue.

Sighing, Regina pinched the bridge of her nose, "He," she began, floundering for a succinct enough description, "He was a demanding magister."

Demanding to say the least. He pushed, even when she thought she was not yet ready, he pushed. Always pushing. Just as Leopold did when the sun had set - a dark Apollo moving above, pushing, tying noose and string round neck, ankle, wrist, then playing her like a puppet. She did not know what she despised more - the fact that she had been so often manipulated by others, or the fact that she had _let_ herself be so often manipulated by others.

"Did he ever beat you like your mother did?"

Regina hid her wince well, disguising it as a muscle tick, "No. Rumple prefers his abuse to be of the psychological caliber. Something you two have in common, it seems," she added dryly.

Archie's lips thinned, but he refrained from rising to the bait.

* * *

"Tell me about your friends," Dr. Hopper prompted.

"What friends?" she quipped dryly.

"You and Kathryn were friends here," he insisted.

"The Evil Queen has no friends, doctor."

"But you two were _friendly_."

Shaking her head with a rueful smile, she said, "In a manner of speaking.

"Then who would you consider to be a friend, or to have been a friend once upon a time?"

Regina thought. She thought of Daniel, of kindness that grew into something more. Or perhaps kindness was all it had ever been - and that had been enough, simple kindness.

She thought of Maleficent. She would not go so far as to call her "friend," at least not in the sense that Dr. Hopper wanted to hear. They had been driven together by their own malice, reviled by others these women of power, until the only ones who could stand their very company were each other. Friends? Well, in a manner of speaking. Again. Her life seemed to have dissolved into a series of never ending amendments.

But she supposed such friendships - devoid of actual amiability though it may have been - had its uses; at least it prevented her from drowning herself into a maudlin stupor with wine every night.

"Rocinante," she finally announced.

Archie frowned quizzically, "Your - horse?"

Glaring, she grit through her teeth, "Is that a problem, _Bug?_"

He cleared his throat, "Touché," he replied quietly with a weak smile.

* * *

"You and the King," Archie started, then paused, gathering how exactly he wanted to broach this subject, "Did you ever conceive?"

At one point she had even wished that she knew what it had been like to give birth to Henry. She wanted to feel the stir of his restless limbs inside. She wanted to have to run to the bathroom every morning and heave up her last meal. She wanted to grip the hems of a hospital gown tight in her fist, teeth clenched, groaning with pain, then the shallow, quickened breaths. She wanted a faceless nurse to hand him to her, while her dark hair clung, slick, to her temples, and she could press her cheek to the top of his head. The whole experience she craved with a desperate want, but which would never be hers. With Henry. Or with any child for that matter.

It was an irrational wish, she knew, and Archie would have a field-day should she let the information slip. She pursed her lips, as though that would subconsciously keep the thought tucked away, hidden from prying ears. This was a fantasy too private, meant for her alone. She would rather lick shit from Snow White's boots than allow anyone else access to so precious, so personal a thing.

Not that Leopold hadn't tried to impregnate her. Snow was his beloved daughter, the perfect image of her mother, the late queen - so much better than Regina in every conceivable way - but he had desired a son as well. A boy to train in the ways of rulers and conquerors. A handsome lad with shoulders the breadth of the sea and with eyes of a similar complexion, who would love nothing more than the hunt and his steed charging after a wild, foaming boar. How dreadfully disappointed he had been to discover that his new, young wife was incapable. As though she needed yet another failing in comparison to his precious Eva.

How she had hated that palace. All the grounds and rooms for her to roam, but always the lurking fear that she would cross paths with her husband, whom she avoided at all costs during the day. During the evening, though, there was no escape. Then the banquets and balls and royal events, when she posed as queen and mother, fixing her mask securely in place - reduced to a head without body, mounted upon a cliff facing the sea - and the king would all but hang her in base display in a glass jar before his guests. Here, my wife. Is she not a pretty oddity? See how she rattles when I shake her cage.

"I tried," she finally began. The padded tips of her fingers tapped evenly on the arm and cushion of the couch, perfectly synchronized - thumb, index, middle, ring, pinkie and back again. Every third encounter she switched the time from 4/4 to 3/4, a hint of whimsy shining through. Today was, after all, the third day of the week. Threes were only to be expected, therefore, "Having a child, I mean. Back in the Enchanted Forest. The King-" she cleared her throat, "Well, he wanted a male heir."

Sucking his teeth, contemplative, Dr. Hopper regarded her, leaned back in his chair, head tilted in an inquisitor's pose, "Did the King ever make his displeasure known?'

"Not in front of others," Regina admitted briefly, and the glare she directed at him warned him from prodding her further on the subject.

He took the hint, instead guiding the conversation in another direction, "But now you have a son."

A sharp breath, suspiciously like a gasp. That must have been the only time someone other than Regina herself had referred to Henry as her son in...quite a while, "Yes," she whispered. Her fingers had frozen, but not she forced them to resume their rhythm, "Yes, I do."

"And is he everything you wanted?"

"Everything and more," she replied, sure, an almost liquid quality entering her voice, "But nothing like what Leopold wanted."

"And what did Leopold want?"

A crease folded the space between her brows, "He wanted a king. Instead I have a poet," she smiled then, and it was a fleeting display, beautiful to behold.

Archie returned the smile, "Henry certainly is a dreamer."

Her smile faded, "Leopold wouldn't have liked him much, I fear."

"Why do you say that?"

The rhythm changed, an increase in tempo, a nervous bruit. Regina sought out the clock, desperate for counting, "Henry is so willful, and it's part of his nature. Leopold wouldn't have understood that aspect of him, wouldn't have respected it."

"And you have respected it?"

Her gaze flashed dangerously, "Of course," she hissed, "I have tried to guide him, not force him. Not until very recently, anyway. When I grew desperate," she waved away the last bit as though it were negligible.

"Guide him to become what?" Dr. Hopper pressed.

For a moment she floundered, "Less like Leopold," she finally relented, "And more like Daniel."

Lifting up his pen, Archie scribbled something on his pad of paper, "Could it be, Miss Mills, that you harbor some buried Oedipal sentiments for Henry?"

At that Regina sat, ramrod straight, eyes blazing like a furnace, "_Excuse me?_"

"Is it really so implausible?" he continued, leaning forward so that his elbows rested upon his knees, "You just told me you want Henry, whom you named after your father, to be more like your lover than your abusive husband."

"Stop twisting my words!" she snapped, "I just want him to be good!"

"Instead of evil? What are you more afraid of Henry becoming? Your late husband? Your impotent father? Your malevolent teacher? Or _you_?"

She choked on her response as though it were a poison lodged in her throat. She had no answer for him this time. And when Dr. Hopper leaned back in his chair to write some more in his notebook, she wanted to throttle him.

* * *

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

_Pause._

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six._

The blinking light. The alarm. A pot of tea in the morning. The suppression of an uncontrollable urge to breathe lines of magic from her mother's book, or grip Cora's scented petticoats to her chest and weep. A too-hot shower. Staring at herself in a foggy mirror, wrapped in a towel, hair wet and tucked behind her ears, eyes dark and distant as a half-finished Caravaggio - figures sketched in black oils - and her fingers reached out to carve dripping letters upon the glassy surface.

The Evil Queen alone with her wretched vanity once again.

* * *

She wondered if her mother were in Hell. Would she reside in the devil's mouth, back flayed by claw and tooth? Or would she be at Death's side, a lady to her lord? Fruit plucked and eaten, bound to that infernal realm through the winter year?

"Tell me about Snow," the doctor was twirling his pen between his fingers, though he took no notes, watching Regina.

Regina's eyes narrowed to slits, dangerous, "What about her?"

"Do you still want to kill her?"

She blinked, taken aback by the question, "Yes," she whispered brokenly.

"Tell me how."

"How?" she scowled in confusion.

"Yes. Tell me how you'd like to kill her."

He said it like he was commenting on the weather.

Regina's jaw wrenched as she opened her mouth to deliver an acrid retort, a burning obscenity of a description of all the things she would like to do to Snow, but nothing came. Kill Snow White? Of course she wanted to kill her.

She wanted to -

She would -

All the fantasies of murder and vengeance teemed around her then, clustering in a claustrophobic rage, and Regina's breath grew shallow, labored. So many fantasies she had played and replayed in her mind over the long years. So why did none of them seem adequate enough now? They flitted, never lingering, always transient, like smoke. It always came back to this - the past all crowded in the present, smoke twisting its narrow stalks in the air, folding upon itself, and through the muddled haze the promise of a better future burned, just a pinprick, a solemn ember bright with poisoned inhalation.

Suddenly she was on her feet, though she could not remember standing, and she was pacing, up and down, up and down in front of Archie's couch; she desperately wanted something, something to do with her hands other than wring them together in a gesture that too closely resembled weakness.

Dr. Hopper watched her from his seat, legs comfortably crossed, notebook balanced upon his knee. He tapped his pen against his chin, "Would you like to go for a walk?"

"What?" she snapped, "Why would I want to go for a walk?"

He shrugged, "Oh, I just think Pongo looks a bit restless being cooped up in here all day. You're welcome to join us."

At the mention of his name, Pongo's ears perked up around his squarish head, and he gazed almost pleadingly from his owner to Regina.

After a moment's consideration, Regina snatched up her coat and gloves, winding her scarf about her neck, "Fine."

"Excellent," Archie smiled, standing and making his way to the coat-hanger by the door. Seeing where his owner was headed, Pongo leapt up from his bed, tail lashing back and forth, thumping against Regina's legs as he trotted by. White dog hairs stuck to her impeccable pants. She pursed her lips and reached down irritably to swipe them off, batting at her shins with her leather gloves with very little perceivable effect

But soon they were outside, exposed to the crisp New England air, and Regina was tugging her gloves into place, tucking the ends of her scarf into her black pea-coat while Archie adjusted his corduroy hat. Giving a gentle pull on the lead, Archie ordered, "Heel," and immediately Pongo was at his side, expectant. Then he turned to Regina, arm out in a parody of a gentlemanly pose, "Shall we?"

Nodding curtly, she started to walk. Together they strode down Storybrooke's main road, and the relief Regina felt at being out in the open and allowed free movement was palpable. In the silence of their stroll, she clenched and unclenched her hands buried in her pockets, leather creaking, taught, over knuckles, the gesture unseen.

The streets were mercifully devoid of the town's inhabitants, and the quiet was broken only by the slow drip of recent rain from the eaves of shops, by the muted slap of their shoes and the click of Pongo's steps on damp pavement. The earth beneath them seemed to slope upwards; Regina felt as though she were scaling a steep cliff rather than ambling along the flats of Storybrooke. Always with the rising hills, Sisyphean features never to be truly mounted. Yet on they walked, and the cold air and smell of rain was refreshing enough - it would have to be enough. For now.

Then she saw them. Two figures emerged from Granny's diner, and both were achingly familiar. Blonde curls. An arm slung across the smaller form's shoulders. Her step faltered and Archie watched her carefully from the sidelines.

Henry was growing. His head reached Emma's bust now. They paused, spying Archie and Regina across the street. Emma offered a brief smile. Henry waved. Regina wanted to tear her hair out, but instead she grimaced and fluttered her fingers in return. Even Dr. Hopper touched a hand to his cap in greeting, then continued down the road. Reluctant, Regina followed.

She couldn't look back. She shouldn't look back. Shoulders hunched, she felt a tremor through her spine, and, unable to resist for a moment longer, her head whipped around, but they were already gone.

* * *

It was early Saturday morning. Ms. Swan was bringing Henry over in a few hours, and Regina had nothing to wear. She was standing in front of her closet, silk shirt unbuttoned and hanging, untucked, around black slacks. Various pairs of shoes lay scattered across the floor. Nothing seemed right. Running her hands nervously through her hair again, she pulled down a dress, only to toss it aside.

That wouldn't do. Ugh. No. That wouldn't either.

Whirling around on her heel, she walked crisply back to her bed, from which she could see the light of her clock. She counted in an attempt to control the moments, the seconds, the hours. But they slipped on by, the hours. A day. Just a day, and her whole life in that single day. She tried to remember happiness, like the happiness she had with Henry once. Perhaps with Daniel it had been there. Or perhaps it had all just been kindness, a pitiful kindness, pathetic; she was pathetic and she couldn't do this and she-

She wanted Henry back. She wanted him back but did not know how to get him this way. Her usual methods were strictly off limits in this circumstance. Her usual methods had already failed to win him over before. In spite of that Regina could not help but daydream fruitlessly about magic, its bitter-sweet siren call, its highest ups and crippling downs, its taste - oh, the taste - like a crimson velvet cake slathered in cream frosting, tooth-ripeningly rich, a hint of chocolate and something darker, something vividly red and thick and throbbing, having been bled open upon altars, this breathing extispicy.

At the thought her chest constricted painfully. She sat at the end of the bed, head between her legs, staring down at her fanning array of discarded shoes, and she wheezed, short gasps of air. Fingers clenched at the duvet. It would be so easy to look back and take a bite from the devil's table.

Suddenly it's all too much. There are too many things to keep track of. Too many things to count. And she wants to order it the way she used to. Easy and hierarchical. Black and white. Good and evil.

Magic buzzes at her fingertips; she can smell it, nauseatingly saccharine those fumes. She feels herself slipping into it, and its tendrils curl around her as her eyes roll back, a Sibylline creature spurred to prophetic ravings by an angry god. _Just this once_, she thinks, and the thought is a desperate plea, _Just this once more..._

Barely she is able to wrench herself away, accompanied by a noise she had never heard herself make before, landing somewhere between a snarl and sob. Her hands and lower lip are trembling, and her vision blurs with angry tears, and everything in the room, in the entire house, feels too clean.

Storming to her closet, Regina rips the immaculate clothes from their hangers, hurling them to the floor. The actions feel insufferably childish, but she finds that she can't stop, and she's smashing the mirror in her bathroom with her hair-dryer, and everything is splayed across the tiled floor, and her vanity and its matching stool are in pieces atop her clothes and bedspread, kindling split and ragged, everything piled together in a mock funeral pyre, and the air is filled with downy feathers from the split pillows on her bed, like bees burst from the bloated stomach of dead cattle in a wretched bougonia. She's panting now, eyes wild, hair in utter disarray, and she's fumbling for a box of matches in her bedside table. She breaks two, a soft scream of frustration emerging through gritted teeth.

She would burn it. Burn it all. And hopefully she too would disappear in the conflagration.

"Regina?"

A voice comes from the doorway, a whisper more than anything else. When she looks up, it's to see the unexpected Emma Swan standing there in her stupid woolen hat, her boots treading faint imprints of mud and grass upon the carpet. The look on her face is one of such surprised concern, such stunned horror - Regina can hardly bear to look at her.

She expects Emma to turn and run, and for a brief moment they are both frozen in place, rooted to the spot. But then Emma is taking a cautious step forward, hands raised as though approached a spooked animal.

"Regina," she breathes, picking her way around shards of glass and splinters of wood, "you're bleeding."

She swallows and looks down. Emma is right; there are cuts on her arms and hands, and bloody footprints marr the floor. A dull ache tells her she's stepped on something sharp.

"Is Henry-?" Regina manages to croak out, still looking down. Feather's fall in white blurs at the edges of her vision, bees without land or lordship, wings plucked and poetless.

"I had him wait outside when I heard commotion in here," Emma replies, quiet.

Regina's hands clench and unclench, nails digging into the meaty flesh of her palms, "I want him," she whines, voice breaking into a gravelly timbre midway, "Please, I just want him back."

A hand on her shoulder and it's so gentle it hurts. Regina flinches at the contact, but it isn't removed. So kind. Too kind. People have no right to show her such unbearable, _unspeakable_ kindness.

"You never lost him in the first place," Emma murmurs. Her thumb strokes a soothing circle on Regina's upper arm, and then she says, "I'll go tell Henry to wait downstairs. Why don't you clean up. Take your time, ok?"

Regina nodded, a shaking affirmation. Miss Swan gave her a look - one of _those_ looks - and then she was striding away. Trailing like a shade, some pale spirit dragged to the ether from the world below, Regina followed, closing the doors of her bedroom behind her, containing the mess there. She made her way to the guest bathroom down the hall, but even as she stood beneath the burning spray of the cleansing shower, she knew she knew she would have to clean it all up eventually.

* * *

"How was your visit with Henry?" Archie asked politely.

It was Monday, and the weekend was over. Another few days of psychoanalysis. And another. And another...

"Fine," Regina replied, clearing her throat and resisting the urge to straighten her sleeves.

She thought of making a pie with Henry. Of how Ms. Swan had joined in, and she and Henry got into a playful fight with the flour. Of how she herself had looked morosely on, a fake smile lashed in place, until Ms. Swan had noticed, face softening only for those green eyes to glint with mischief, and smeared a palmful of flour across Regina's blouse. Both Emma and Henry had burst into giggles at the look on her face.

Yes. The weekend had been remarkably, perfectly fine.

"What would you like to do now, Regina?" Archie asked, adjusting his glasses.

Swallowing thickly, she said, "I'd-" but she had to stop and tuck her hair behind one ear, "I'd like to get better."

He smiled at her, that too-kind smile, "Excellent. Then we can finally begin."

* * *

**PS: if you guys want to read that article "Acheronta Movebo" by Starobinsky, just PM with your e-mail address and I'll send you the PDF. Yes, I have it downloaded to my computer. Don't judge me. It's a good article, dammit. Besides, I tend to hoard ebooks and articles, even though I have unlimited access to internet journal databases like JSTOR thanks to my university affiliations. Ahhh...I love being a grad...**

**-Kore**


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